Now more than ever you must make the most of your time whether it’s business, fun or both. You only live once as they say. This weekend I endured a variety of battles that all began on "The New Friday" otherwise known as Thursday. View the comments section to read the story...
Mar 5, 2008
Weekend Warrior
Now more than ever you must make the most of your time whether it’s business, fun or both. You only live once as they say. This weekend I endured a variety of battles that all began on "The New Friday" otherwise known as Thursday. View the comments section to read the story...
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2 comments:
dude i envy you. good story, wish there was a pic of you in that keg
I charged up to Newport Beach Thursday evening in order make the most of Friday. I arrived between 10 and 11 pm and was greeted by the site of familiar faces and a fridge fully stocked with a variety of brew. After "having a couple" we decided to hit the hay in order to get up early and surf.
Friday morning I had a architectural photo shoot at 10:00am, so in order to surf we got up at 6:15am. We went to 52nd St in Newport just a few short blocks away from Ryan’s new place. The surf was pretty decent, with scattered nuggets waiting to be indulged upon. After surfing and getting pounded into the sand, which is only a few feet below this epic beach break, I was on my way to the shoot. The shoot went well, and to add to the glory of my first* architectural shoot the woman that owned the home was "pleasant to the eyes" haha.
After the shoot the rest of the day was spent feasting on ridiculous foods such as chronic tacos and donuts (a weekend warrior necessity). After the standard operations of showering and other miscellaneous recovery procedures we awaited the arrival of Leslie and Tyler. Once they arrived Tyler and I decided that we were gonna cook up an epic feast for everyone. After a while we decided to cook chicken Parmesan over tortellini w/ a side of vegetables.
We went to the store where we began what unknowingly was going to be an hour long shopping adventure. Since Tyler is studying to become a chef and I consider myself an underground premier chef, we made everything unnecessarily difficult for ourselves. We wanted to make everything from scratch, which was no easy task. To add to the difficulty ryan had just moved in and had no cooking supplies. So we purchased everything from flour to cooking sheets. During our tour through the local Albertsons we had an incredible "you had to be there" moment. As we were taking our tour through the glorious isles of Albertsons, the incredibly irie burges bros and myself spotted the free samples at the in-store mini starbucks. While eating the scrumptious little nugs the barista dude began pouring little sample cups of some delicious smelling coffee type product. As we began to drink these we asked, “what is this?” Still in the process of pouring the little cups this barista bro got the genius idea to add whipped cream to his creation. So he says " Chai latte...w/ WHIPPED CREAM BITCH!”... Oh. My. God. We dumped so hard. Nearly falling to the ground and spurting the self titled "Chai latte...w/ WHIPPED CREAM BITCH!" all over the store we staggered away unable to recover for several minutes. Shortly after this lovely incident we finished our shopping and returned back to the apartment.
While cooking this soon to be deliciousness we rightfully drank wine and beer to put us in the proper chef mindset. Tyler and I rotated through the tasks of preparing the chicken, tortellini’s, and preparing the green beans and broccoli. Before we knew it our masterpiece was complete and ready for its swift destruction. The dinner was enjoyed by all, especially us since we had put so much into it.
Saturday morning began somewhat easily with a short drive to check the waves at 8am. The wind chose not to cooperate with us this morning so we chose to surf the Wedge which is less affected by the wind. We got some considerable sized nugs ranging from 3 to 8ft or so; keep in mind Wedge is one heavy mother of a wave that likes hang out w/ shallow mahn aka knee deep or less water.
After feasting on lunch Tyler and I came to the decision that we would attempt to cook some sort of a meal w/ Swedish meatballs for dinner. We chose to have Swedish meatballs w/ gravy on bowtie pasta, garlic bread, and sautéed asparagus. After doing a bit of research and referencing my mom for guidance on the Swedish aspect of the recipe we got to work making our meatballs and added the necessary ingredients. We steamed the asparagus, diced the garlic and sliced the toast. Then we added the finishing touches by creating a gravy from scratch using the juices we had collected from cooking the meatballs, milk, bullion cubes, flour and some spices. Making this dinner was very satisfying not only because it was delicious but also because of its Swedish origin, well at least the meatballs.
Shortly there after, I remembered that I was to shoot the LA Marathon in the morning... at 5:30am. To safely avoid the potential delay from the 25,000 entrants I had to get to the Downtown metro station at 4:30am. By the time I figured out all my directions I was able to get to bed by 11pm and set my alarm for a brutal 3:30am.
Sunday began with my mission to LA at the refreshing hour of 3:30 am. This mission was not to go without its battles. My troubles all began when I took the 405 rather than the 5 freeway as I had wrote down in my directions. I continued on, figuring that I would be able to get to this metro station anyways even though I had an extremely vague understanding for its exact location. From the 5 I was supposed to take the 110, so I did, although I was on the 405. I went south when I should have gone north and ended up in San Pedro…not where I wanted to be.
It was 4:30am; I was sitting at some ghetto gas station, in the dark, alone, in despair. I could not believe that I was going to fail this “mish”. It seemed to be unreal that I had woken up at 3:30 am only to not succeed. Because I was unaware of where I was, where exactly I was going and how far from one destination to another I was, I started my way back. I devised a text message with a simple explanation for how I got lost and was unable to make it.
Halfway back I finally sent the message. I had waited hoping that somehow I would convince my self to turn around which did not happen. Moments after I sent the message I got a call from the regional manager for the company that had hired me as one of several photographers for the marathon. He was determined to get me there before or on time; so I turned around. I was not hesitant to turn around, however I doubted that I would make it in time simply because I did not know how far I had to go. It ended up being not as far as I had imagined. I drove to the 101 and went south to Vineland. Got of the exit and there I was, in the parking lot at 5:30am right on time w/ all these other loaded up photographers.
I was glad to make it and fairly enthusiastic about being in LA at 5:30am in a small parking lot with the moon overhead. As the cameras and equipment were being distributed and tested among the photographers I realized it was going to be a long day. Once everything was sorted out everyone took off and started shooting. It was an interesting situation because we were all getting paid per shot so it was somewhat of a competition until we got spread out amongst the now pouring in 25,000 runners.
I spent the first half of the day shooting individual runners, couples, friends, families and teams that were interested in pictures. I shot exactly 497 images. Then at lunchtime we went to the finish area where we were all assigned to individual backdrops for shooting the “Finisher” shots. This went painfully slow for most of the four hours. Despite the dull nature of the “candid” photography it was quite interesting to shoot so many different people because there were so many different reactions in regards to getting their photo taken. I shot just over 500 images at my station and once things got really slow I was sent home.
This is where another one of my battles began. Being incredibly confident in my sense of direction I hadn’t even thought of asking for the name of the metro station that we had originally got on to get to the finish area. I would soon realize sense of direction does not help when you’re underground, especially in a metro system. Once I got to the metro station, which was somewhat of a trek in itself I realized that things could get tricky. Sure enough they did. I guessed that the metro stop Hollywood/Vine was the closest one to the exit I got off the freeway earlier “Vineland”, however that was a bad guess. Vine is an actual street, and it is nowhere near where I was supposed to be going.
After taking several wrong stops and switching to the wrong colored lines and all that B.S. I eventually arrived at what I thought was my destination (Hollywood/vine). As I explored the area above ground I noticed a sign next to a video camera on the side of a wall that read, “For your protection”. As I looked back to the corner I was standing on I noticed the guy standing next to me had a tear drop tattoo underneath his eye…”god, damnit”, I thought to myself. Why can I not just get to where I need to be going! I had already got off the metro at the wrong connecting points several times and was exhausted from walking around and shooting all day.
My journey though the LA metro system was a long and painful one. I met a bunch of other people who were lost along with me not to mention some bums/crack heads who would have normally been entertaining but in my current state were just annoying. After 2 phenomenal hours of LA’s metro system I made it. 6pm and it was over, thank god.
I made it to my car from the metro station that I was trying to get to all along and called the boys back in NB. They were getting ready for dinner so I charged down and we got some dinner. While we were out to dinner we noticed that the winds had switched and were howling offshore. We were stoked! Sure enough we arrived at the same conclusion we always do when miracles such as the wind blowing offshore come to be; we were going to get up early.
Monday morning. The winds were still powering off shore so we wasted no time getting to the beach and in the water. I brought out my camera housing and began shooting perfect 4-6ft offshore barrels. After getting a bunch of good shots I went in and grabbed my board. I quickly remembered why it is sometimes so difficult to put down your board and pick up the camera. Almost immediately after I put away the camera I pulled into what had to have been a wave that is in competition for the best barrel I have ever ridden. Clean, offshore, and fast I bottom turned into a deep barrel. I didn’t think I was going to make it out because I had set up so deep but I was able to get enough speed to stop the lip from getting to far away from me. Settling in at a distance at about 2-3 ft from the lip of the wave I was in heaven. Even just a second or two from a offshore barrel that overlooked the early morning sunshine on the Newport Beach community would have been enough to make me forget yesterday’s brutal day. However I got hooked up, I don’t know who it was, Poseidon, Jesus, Moses maybe even the God guy, but whoever it was, hooked it up with what is among the top five in-n-out barrel rides of my life. Peeling for at least 5 seconds, Ryan and Mike sat on their boards in disbelief that my board and I had not popped up somewhere in the whitewater already. Just before I got to the rock jetty I popped out of the barrel and let out a loud hoot and a haller to send my regards to the mystical barrel god for giving me that wave.
For the rest of the day I could not stop thinking about that wave. Still, even now I have a perfect image of that barrel in my mind. I am going to be revisiting that wave and this great weekend for many years to come. Become a Weekend Warrior, get out there and battle the bad, the good, and the not to be forgotten.
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